Even though Anna Gunn calls her time on Breaking Bad "one of the most rewarding creative journeys" of her career, she's also earned herself a place in the pop culture zeitgeist by playing one of the most hated characters on ...

TV Guide

Even though Anna Gunn calls her time on Breaking Bad "one of the most rewarding creative journeys" of her career, she's also earned herself a place in the pop culture zeitgeist by playing one of the most hated characters on television.

Penning an op-ed for The New York Times, Gunn points out the many pages on the Internet devoted to hating her character Skyler, the wife of Bryan Cranston's Walter White, because she has tried to stop her husband from cooking and selling meth on several occasions. But the hatred of her character has bled into her real life.

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"At some point on the message boards, the character of Skyler seemed to drop out of the conversation, and people transferred their negative feelings directly to me," Gunn wrote. "The already harsh online comments became outright personal attacks. One such post read: 'Could somebody tell me where I can find Anna Gunn so I can kill her?' Besides being frightened (and taking steps to ensure my safety), I was also astonished: How had disliking a character spiraled into homicidal rage at the actress playing her?"

The Emmy-nominated actress recognizes that since Walter is Bad's protagonist, viewers will naturally side with him. "As the one character who consistently opposes Walter and calls him on his lies, Skyler is, in a sense, his antagonist," she wrote. "So from the beginning, I was aware that she might not be the show's most popular character."

Breaking Bad: Will Skyler stand by Walt's side?

Even so, Gunn insists that Skyler is a strong woman who will stand her ground. Which perhaps continues to fuel the fire. "Could it be that they can't stand a woman who won't suffer silently or 'stand by her man'?" she wrote. "That they despise her because she won't back down or give up? Or because she is, in fact, Walter's equal?"